About the Lecture

This lecture examines how and why special attention has been paid to the work of screenwriters in Japan. I will be looking at the industrial and critical status of these almost literary figures as well as their working methods within the studio system. Such fascination with screenwriting also relates to a larger consuming culture where the abundant publishing of film scripts for the general audience brought about a new kind of readership. This textual corpus of scenarios arguably complements as well as contests screen viewing experience while proposing an alternative canon of Japanese film.

About the Speaker

Lauri Kitsnik is a film historian who completed his PhD at Cambridge in 2016. He is currently Robert and Lisa Sainsbury fellow at the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures in Norwich.